DVX100 Iris Settings and Tips for Non-Lighted for Car Mount Shots
by Gary Spidell

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Shooting From the Outside In

Let’s say for example, you’re framing your DVX100 for a day car mount shot of a driver talking to a passenger. You place your Sticky Pod or DIY camera mount on the driver’s side door with your camera pointed into the car’s interior. Unless you’re shooting in the magic hour (sunset/sunrise), you’ll notice that your talent will look like a silhouette against the strong daylight behind him in the passenger window. So, to help balance the exposure between the talent and the heavily lit background without the use of any lighting gear and just relying simply on natural light, you’ll have to increase the amount of light entering into the DVX 100 for the CCD’s to register.

For this, you first need to set the iris at a good starting point. Set the iris function on your DVX100 to AUTO mode and then point the lens to your actor. You’ll notice your iris will expose more for the heavily lit background since this is where most of the light source is coming from. This will cause the DVX to automatically close a few f-stops in order to regulate the background light when entering the iris. The DVX 100 is designed to max out whatever light is available to help the CCD’s register a proper picture.

Next, set the iris function on your DVX to MANUAL mode. Then, open the iris a few f-stops until your actor becomes more and more exposed. Be careful though - the more light you let in, the more you’ll notice the background behind him begin to bleed or become overexposed. It’s here where you have to find your compromise between the exposure of your actor vs. the exposure of his background. You should expose you actor just enough to where you can see his features and at the same time keep the background from being completely blown out. Remember, it’s easier to make dark footage brighter in post than it is to adjust blown out footage and make it darker.

EZ NOTE: get a good gauge by letting the DVX100 register the light for you using the AUTO iris function and then switch over to MANUAL and fine tune it. 

(continued on next page - DVX100 Iris Settings - Shooting From the Inside Out...)

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